Fremantle locals rally to save century-old pines from pedestrian crossing
Two ancient Norfolk Pines could cause collateral damage if the City of Fremantle goes ahead with plans to create two pedestrian crossings at a popular seaside intersection.
But the community will be crucial in deciding whether the removal will actually happen.
A month-long community survey asking residents questions about proposed crosswalks at South Terrace and Douro Road wrapped up on Tuesday, but if signs taped to trees are any indication, locals aren’t behind getting rid of the trees.
A City of Fremantle spokesman said they had received “an overwhelming response from the community”.
Local resident Marie Jeffrey told 9 News Perth He couldn’t believe that the municipality was considering removing old pine trees to make way for a pedestrian crossing.
“Removing such beautiful trees is absolutely disrespectful,” he said.
Danielle Bayard, also a Fremantle resident, echoed similar sentiments.
“Crossing the road in some way helps with pedestrian safety and controlling the speed of vehicles, but I think removing trees is unnecessary.”
Proposed plans show that a wombat crossing (a zebra crossing placed on the flat top road hump) would be built along the Douro Road just in front of the first Norfolk pine positioned on the median strip.
It was proposed to remove the two-century-old pines along with the existing juvenile street trees in the middle lane.
The second crossing will be built along South Terrace just before the intersection.
At the council meeting on May 27, councilor Jemima Williamson-Wong said the proposal was strictly to help pedestrians cross the busy intersection safely.
“Every one of the 60 people has a good experience at that roundabout (at South Terrace and Douro Road) if they’re in a car, and every one of the 60 people has a bad experience if they try to get through that roundabout,” Williamson-Wong said.
“We know more and more people are trying to cross this intersection and it is vital that we provide them with a safe route to cross.”
Williamson-Wong acknowledged that removing the trees would be controversial, but said he was open to hearing what the community had to say about the proposal.
“The biggest elephant in the room with this proposal is that we are considering removing two trees, and that is not a decision I take lightly,” he said.
“This is a great example of the difficult decision we are sometimes asked to make because, yes, it will be very sad to lose two of those big Norfolk pines.”
Despite this admission, Williamson-Wong said keeping trees could cause a child, pet or adult to get into a traffic accident because trees are hidden out of the driver’s view.
“We know the security baseline isn’t good right now, but I think if we’re going to implement a recommendation that we want to be secure, we need it to be secure,” he said.
“I hope the community can see that by including these trees… we are clear in the consultation: do you think it is appropriate for us to prioritize the crossing over the trees, or do you want us to say no to this crossing and preserve the trees?”
Councilor Andrew Sullivan said no decision would be made on tree removal at the council meeting and noted a report on community consultation would need to be discussed in the coming months.
“The trees thing is going to be very important to us. It’s even more important to the community because a lot of people are going to come in blind, in a sense they haven’t gone through the two-year process, they see how difficult it is to find the right place for these crossings,” he said.
“They’ll look at it and say, ‘Why can’t we put forward a proposal that doesn’t involve removing trees?’ they will ask. And if that were possible, I can assure people that I would race at 100 miles per hour.”
Sullivan went on to suggest changes for officers to consider incorporating on-road bike lanes, which would likely result in the removal of the median strip.
“We know that the whole of the Douro Trail is currently being reviewed by staff and it is one that will hopefully come to us in the foreseeable future and there have been conversations about how to handle cycle facilities on the Douro Trail,” he said.
“I have emphasized that it is not really practical or possible for a dual-use path to run off-road along the Douro Trail.
“The only way to successfully get this through this section where there is transit is to lose the majority of the median strip so that bike lanes can be placed on the edges without the trees on the edges falling down, which is even more important than the two trees we talked about in the median strip,” he said.
Two century-old Norfolk Pines stand on the threshold of what became Marine Terrace at the end of the Douro Trail, but Sullivan was unwilling to get rid of them, despite the recommendation in the proposed plan.
“I looked at the safety report on the two Norfolks on the verge… and I was consistently of the view that if we couldn’t solve this problem by changing the speed of traffic coming into that corner, but also when they got to the intersection or crossing point… then we shouldn’t be in this business,” he said.
The city recently applied to Main Roads to reduce the speed limit along Douro Road from 50 kilometers per hour to 40 kilometers per hour from Hampton Road to Marine Terrace. This came into effect on June 24.
A report on community engagement is expected to be released in the coming months.
